The Unofficial Nightmare Club
by adorable pragmatism
Summary: Headcanon 176: "At least once a week, Dick has learnt to expect Tim, Bart, or Gar to come very quietly into his room very late at night after a particularly bad nightmare… Occasionally they even run into each other. None of them have ever spoken about it in the light of day, but they all call it the Unofficial Nightmare Club in their heads."


A/N: Prompt from the Young Justice Headcanons tumblr! Awesome blog, check it out!

Headcanon 176: "At least once a week, Dick has learnt to expect Tim, Bart, or Gar to come very quietly into his room very late at night after a particularly bad nightmare. The three younger boys know that Dick is like them, and often sees the worst events of his life played out on the back of his eyelids. Occasionally they even run into each other. None of them have ever spoken about it in the light of day, but they all call it the Unofficial Nightmare Club in their heads."

This also kind of fills headcanon 171, about Dick having a stuffed elephant. I couldn't resist. It's too adorable.

(I just realized I made Alfred all ALONE at the Manor oh god well let's just say that Dick and Tim and Babs visit a _lot _and stay over sometimes, okay?)

(Also, confession: I don't know everything about Tim and had to wiki him for more backstory info. Also Bart, but the show made it a bit easier to write him. (I mean, Tim's only had like ten lines and no definite backstory given for Earth-16. What's up with that? (He's precious, though.)))

* * *

It happens to Gar a lot. He tries to transform into a dog or a cat at night, because their dreams are full of basking in the sun and running after bunny rabbits or cars, but he has difficulty holding the form until morning and often the dreams change so that those car wheels he was chasing are _spinning, spinning, spinning endlessly_ the wrong way up in a shallow pond under a waterfall while black smoke rises from the twisted metal carcass of the vehicle and _blood seeps_—

Another nightmare cruelly yanks him awake, his thin chest heaving with quiet sobs as he clutches his pillow to his face.

The dreams aren't as bad as they once were. In the first couple of months he had full-blown night terrors, waking up shouting and choking, unable to stop until someone—M'gann, Conner, Nightwing, _anyone_—came in and calmed him down.

He can go to M'gann. His sister. Sometimes he does. But he feels weird about bugging her and La'gaan. (Things are so much different than they were when she was dating Conner…)

M'gann is comforting, and everyone else is kind, but Gar feels like Nightwing is the only one who truly understands. He remembers when he first came to the Cave after the accident; he had nowhere else to go and held onto M'gann's hand for dear life the entire day. When Gar arrived, Nightwing gave him a sympathetic look and a tight hug, somehow saying everything without saying a word.

Nightwing patrols a city called Blüdhaven some nights when they don't have a mission and aren't busy (he hasn't gone there in a while), but he lives in the Cave, to be near the Team. He used to live with Batman, apparently, but, _things change…_

Gar's room is right beside Nightwing's. It once belonged to Kid Flash—Wally. The full-timers have their rooms close to each other because the Cave can be so vast and lonely at night, even though it's no darker than it is during the day. They like to keep themselves bunched together, all connected to the same hallway. They feel more like a family that way.

Gar tiptoes out of his bedroom and knocks softly on Nightwing's door, just once. The teen inside is conditioned to be alert at all times, and wakes up immediately. Gar hears him fumbling around for the pair of sunglasses he keeps on his nightstand. (On a later day, Gar will learn Nightwing's—_Dick's—_name when Bart arrives from the future, blabbing spoilers, and the sunglasses won't really be necessary.)

Smiling, Nightwing slides open his door, and Gar bounds inside, scampering onto the bed immediately and sitting cross-legged on top of it.

On Nightwing's bookcase sits a stuffed elephant that Gar has grown attached to over his visits, ever since the first night he knocked on this door and Nightwing gave him the elephant to hold onto, to make him feel better. It worked. The elephant's old—maybe older than Gar. So old that the fabric of its ears is worn down and silky-soft. Gar can tell that it means a lot to Nightwing, and is surprised that he lets Gar near something so precious to him. But Nightwing insists on handing it to Gar each time, telling him that it's okay.

Gar should feel silly, since he's too old to take comfort from stuffed animals. Then again, it belongs to Nightwing, who's even older than he is.

They prop up some pillows so they can sit and lean against the headboard of the bed comfortably. Gar hugs the stuffed elephant while Nightwing puts an arm around him and tells him stories. Nightwing has the _best_ stories. Some are real, and some are made-up, and some are so crazy that they sound made-up but Nightwing swears that they actually happened.

When Gar's breathing stops being so shaky and his hiccups go away, he tells Nightwing a few stories of his own. He tells Nightwing about growing up in the animal sanctuary, about every animal that was his friend. He tells Nightwing about the home he misses as much as he misses his mother.

Eventually his talking is so interrupted by his own yawns that he keeps losing his spot in the story and repeats himself over and over. By then he's feeling better, so he thanks Nightwing and leaves for his own bedroom, stopping to place the stuffed elephant reverently on its shelf.

Gar isn't the only one who suffers from nightmares. He knows that Nightwing has them, too, because the times when Gar successfully manages to spend the entire night curled up as an animal his terror-free dreams can be interrupted by the older hero's mutterings, that his sharpened hearing catches through the thick cave walls. Mutterings of _nonono not them no it can't happen they never THEY NEVER—!_

A few seconds of faint rustling, and then Nightwing exhales one word, his voice so full of quiet devastation that he has to be awake by that point:

_Why…_

He'll say it like it's not even a question; like he long ago realized that he won't find an answer.

If the dream sounds especially bad then Gar will pretend that he's had a bad one, too, because he doesn't want Nightwing to be alone. On those nights, he hands the stuffed elephant back to Nightwing and lets him hold onto it.

* * *

Tim usually sleeps at home in Gotham. He and his teammates all have rooms at the Cave, but he seldom stays the night in his. He already uses the sleepover-with-friends excuse so much to cover up his night-time escapades in Gotham that his father has started getting suspicious and asking if there's a _girl_ involved. It embarrasses him just remembering how he tried to respond to that.

It's hard lying to his father, who, since waking up from his coma, only wants to make up for all the years spent focused on business rather than Tim.

They were never the perfect family, the kind that had dinner together every evening. Tim didn't realize how much his mother meant to him until she was gone, and now he wishes more than anything that he can bring her back and put his family together the way it used to be, so that they can have a second shot and do everything right.

Deep down, Tim feels like he cursed his family by wanting to take up the Robin mantle. But he won't give it up. There are too many people counting on him—Bruce, Dick, the Team, and all of Gotham. All Tim can do is try to be a better Robin, so that nobody else gets hurt.

Tim's brain mulls over issues like these—ways he can improve, ways he can be _better_—at the end of the night when he's trying to drift off to sleep, keeping him awake despite his exhaustion after patrolling with Batgirl. He doesn't let himself look at the time on the clock next to his bed, because the glowing digits will only stress him out by telling him how close morning is.

Meditation doesn't work. He can't clear his mind. He can't stop thinking, can't ever stop thinking of each tiny detail of each patrol and mission, even ones that ended ages ago. What if he had been more careful? What if he had been more impulsive? What if he had trusted his instincts that one time? What if he _hadn't_? How would things have gone? Better or worse? Decisions, factors, outcomes. Consequences. _Always_ consequences, for every action.

These thoughts lead to some of the worst nightmares he's ever had. They're unsettlingly realistic without a hint of dream-logic, building directly on the analyses of past missions that won't stop running through his mind. It's like he's stuck on a track where each choice leads to a fork and he keeps making the wrong decision even though he's studied this exact situation before, or it's exactly like a mission he's been on and everything went fine _then_, so why is he making all of these mistakes _now_? Screaming the right answers in his brain won't stop it from showing him what _would_ have happened if he chose wrong.

Tim lies in bed, staring up at the ceiling after seeing yet another person he cares about die in his dream because he screwed up, took unnecessary risks, didn't read the situation properly. Because he wasn't a good enough Robin.

He feels lost, trapped in his own mind. He needs to let it out. He needs to talk to somebody.

He can't go to his father, because he doesn't even know that Tim is Robin.

Bruce is a great teacher and mentor, but he's not the person Tim wants to go to about nightmares. And since Bruce left for Rimbor, that isn't even an option anymore.

No, the person Tim needs to talk to is at Mount Justice. Lucky for him, the Cave is only a zeta tube-ride away.

He goes in his full uniform. He feels weird showing up in the Cave wearing anything else. The cape feels heavy on his shoulders tonight, though. Too heavy.

He's hesitant about awakening Dick, knowing how precious little sleep any of them manage to get. It's a silly hesitation—the racket of the zeta tube would have woken up Dick and probably everyone else the second he stepped into the Cave—but it still keeps him from actually knocking on the door.

Knocking isn't needed. Dick knows he's there and slides the door open without any prompt.

Dick looks Tim up and down with a slightly amused smile, like _only Tim_ would be serious enough to wear his Robin uniform for a short visit to the Cave in the middle of the night. Tim should probably be the amused one, because Dick has on the gaudy Batman-themed pajamas Wally and Artemis bought him last Christmas, except he's way too stressed out to find that funny at the moment.

The apology Tim makes about showing up so late at night (_he wouldn't have come but he just really needs to talk if that's okay?)_ is met with a mild eye-roll from Dick, and the older boy ushers the younger one inside immediately.

Only when the door is closed does Tim peel off his mask to match Dick. _No masks between us_, Dick always says. _We're brothers._

Dick sits on the edge of his bed and pats the spot beside him. Somehow, Dick's inviting nature just makes Tim feel _worse_ about bothering him, so instead Tim makes a beeline for the desk chair, pulls it closer to the bed and sits on it backwards, facing Dick, with his arms crossed over the top of the backrest. He holds onto the chair like it's the only thing keeping him from sinking and drowning, and he talks.

Dick is a good listener. It isn't a skill he learned from Bruce. It isn't something he trained to be. No, it's just _him_; just who he is. Dick listens to Tim as he lets out every thought and feeling that's been building up inside of him—his mom, his dad, being Robin, the constant dread of failure, and the fear that he will never be good enough.

Tim can't even imagine how hard it was for Dick, starting out as Robin from scratch. _How did he do it? How does he do it?_

And then Dick does all the right things.

He consoles Tim, telling him that, _no_, what happened to his parents wasn't his fault; he can't blame himself. That he understands what Tim's going through, and it wasn't fair for either of them to have lost loved ones. That Tim has people on his side—his father, Dick, Bruce, Babs, Alfred, and more—who are all his family and would do anything for him.

He assures Tim that, _yes_, he's an incredible Robin. That he's proud of him. That things may seem _over_whelming right now, but soon—sooner than Tim thinks—he'll be whelmed.

Dick is the person Tim admires most. It's his shoes that Tim is trying to fill. It feels to Tim like Dick is the person he's trying so hard to _be_, so Dick's approval and praise means the world to him, even more than Bruce's does.

Tim has to return to Gotham before dawn, before his father wakes up and notices that he's not there. He apologizes about intruding for the tenth time, and Dick just chuckles sleepily and tells him that he's an absolute _truder_, and to come back whenever he wants.

It's strange, Tim notices later as he climbs the tree beside his bedroom window to sneak back inside, while the sky slowly brightens to a thin grey. He swings from one sturdy branch to another, then lifts himself up to perch near the very top like the Robin he is, and it's all _so strange_ because since talking to Dick and getting all those worries off of his chest he feels a lot lighter. His cape doesn't seem as heavy on his shoulders.

Then, when he's crawling under the covers to catch an hour or two of sleep, he lets himself laugh quietly because Dick was wearing _Batman _pajamas.

* * *

Bart's still new. Everyone thinks he's a stranded tourist, when he's actually a secret refugee.

His living situation has been a bit nomadic lately. He stays with his grandparents sometimes, but Grandpa and Grandma are busy with the pregnancy and work, and Bart's worried he'll let some nasty spoilers slip (or that they'll get tired of him…), so it's not a constant thing. He stayed with Wally once… That didn't go so well. He stayed with the Garricks for a couple of days, too. That was great.

Bart doesn't mind moving around. That's what he does. That's who he is—a speedster. Always on the move. Bouncing around from place to place lets him spend time with people he used to only dream about meeting. Things are getting a little more stable for him, and now his nights are mostly split between Grandpa and Grandma's house and the Cave.

The Cave is where he's staying tonight. It's a good place for him. He needs to be here, near the action. The future is coming—it's the one thing he can't outrun—and he needs to make sure that it won't be the one he escaped from. Saving the Flash might not have been enough. He has no way of knowing.

Bart didn't have many nightmares before he travelled to this time. He does now, because everything around him is so perfect. There's green grass on Earth; blue skies and water; snow that's white, not grey like ash; and all of the good people he read about in history books or heard about in stories. It's all so perfect that it makes him panic thinking about how things could have gone so wrong and become the reality he grew up in.

His nightmares are full of family and friends dying. Heroes fighting and losing because it's impossible and they never stood a chance, never saw it coming. People he lost and people he left behind. Truths he can't share with anybody so he has to bear alone and cover with jokes and smiles because _they can't know_.

He doesn't want to be some… some prophet of doom. He can't tell them, because what if he can't stop something bad from happening even if he knows it's going to happen, or if he stops it and something _worse_ happens and everyone blames him? _What then?_

He's totally feeling the mode. The mode is crushing him so much that he can barely breathe at times.

Thoughts are zipping around his mind at light speed. He falls asleep and wakes up, falls asleep and wakes up, falls asleep and wakes up, all in the time-span it would take a hummingbird to flap its wings ten times.

Every flash of dream is like a punch to the gut—they're all nightmares, each one of them different.

He tries to calm down and clear his head by counting sheep, reaching the millions before he decides that it won't work.

He feels scared and alone, and he doesn't want to reveal _why_ to his grandparents, so instead of leaving the Cave and going to them he finds himself suddenly standing in front of Nightwing's bedroom door, knocking so fast that the sound it makes is more like a hum.

Bart's from the future. He knows who Nightwing is. He knows what Dick Grayson's been through. He's heard about how the hero who trained under the legendarily scary Batman was ironically one of the kindest. The most trusted. The one everyone went to with their problems.

When the bad things happened, Dick Grayson was forced to put on the cowl of Batman. Bart heard about how he tried so hard to keep all the heroes together and give them hope until he was crushed by all of the loss, becoming a husk of the man he once was and eventually one of the lost himself.

None of that is going to happen this time around, if Bart has anything to do about it. And he does. He scrounged parts and stole technology, risking his life to build a time machine just so he could have one shot at saving these people.

Dick Grayson opens the door, and he doesn't look surprised at who he finds, because who else can knock that fast? His face and eyes are uncovered. Bart is already aware of his identity, so the colour of his eyes won't be new information either. It isn't—Bart knows that they're blue. He knows more than he should about everybody and everything. He knows their pasts and their futures.

Bart blurts out some lies (not total lies) about being homesick and missing his parents and having awful dreams. Dick blinks at him, too exhausted to follow speedster-speak but getting the gist of it. Not just the story, but the story _behind_ the story.

The time-traveling tourist tale is one that Dick takes with a grain of salt—Dick and Tim both. There are words to explain why, like _Bat-paranoia_, or so Bart has heard.

Bart gets this vibe from Dick, like the older hero understands that a lot can happen in forty years. A lot of bad things can happen. Dick Grayson has spent half his life wearing a mask—of course he can tell that Bart's wearing one, except _Bart's_ mask is made out of big grins and weak excuses about messing up the time stream. But, Dick never presses Bart for spoilers. He doesn't ask who might have died or gotten seriously hurt in those forty very long years.

Maybe he's scared to. Or maybe he can read Bart well enough to know that the answer is _everybody. _

And hey, since Dick Grayson's putting those detective skills to work, nearly having it all figured out already, Bart doesn't need to worry about making Dick suspicious (because he already _is_) by coming to him in the middle of the night and revealing that he suffers from terrible nightmares. Dick understands that Bart's been through a lot.

So, Bart takes what he came here for—a hug. Nightwing tenses at first, but recovers quickly and puts his arms around Bart in return, patting him on the back.

Bart's hugged a lot of people since he got here. He needs to remind himself that they're real. That _this_ is real life, not just a wonderful dream. The rapid flickering between awake and asleep earlier left him a little confused. He needs to _make_ _sure_.

Sometimes it all seems too good to be true, so the hugs are necessary to keep him grounded. And when he hugs someone who should be dead, and feels that they're really _real_ and solid and alive? It gives him a feeling of bubbly joy that helps ease the ever-present knot of dread in his stomach.

For Dick the hug feels like it lasts a couple of seconds. For Bart it's like hours. Dick's about to ask Bart if he wants to talk, but the speedster just grins and zooms away, leaving a very puzzled Nightwing standing in the doorway.

* * *

There comes a night when Gar can't block out the sound of rushing water (_mixing with blood and gasoline_), Tim is choking on all of the responsibility (_just don't die just don't die)_, and Bart feels haunted by the future (_and all the people around him that should be ghosts)._

Tim, as Robin, is standing outside of Dick's bedroom door, waging his usual internal battle about whether or not to knock. His cape flares outward from the gust of air Bart creates by skidding to a stop beside him. Gar pokes his head out of his bedroom, sees the two boys, and retreats instantly, but it's too late and they've already noticed him so he sheepishly joins them in the hallway.

With enthusiasm, Bart does the knocking. He raps on the door _too_ loudly and _too_ rapidly, making Tim scowl and grab the speedster's wrist to stop him before he wakes up everybody with the noise that booms throughout the night-time hush of the Cave.

Dick opens his door without bothering to search in the dark for a pair of sunglasses or a mask because everyone here knows who he is. His blue eyes are tired and slightly bloodshot as he looks down at the three of them.

At first, not a word is said.

Tim shifts uncomfortably, the only one not wearing pajamas.

Gar gives an exaggerated yawn, using that as an excuse to subtly wipe the lingering tears out of his eyes.

Bart smiles, and grabs Dick around the waist in a hug.

Dick sighs, not irritated in the least about being woken up at such an hour. He returns Bart's hug, ruffles Tim's hair and tells him to _chill_, hands Gar the stuffed elephant, and takes the boys to the kitchen to make them some hot chocolate.

(That was the first full meeting of their unofficial nightmare club.)


End file.
